More energetic approach needed on green investment bank

If the chancellor wanted to boost growth in the budget he should have given the new green investment bank full borrowing powers now – not in 2015 (Green initiatives, 24 March). Hundreds of billions of investment is needed in the next few years to transform the UK's energy markets, keep the lights on and meet our climate and renewable-energy targets. And the green economy should be a big driver for growth, creating jobs and helping deliver the required deficit reduction. The £3bn the chancellor has pledged is a good start, but it won't be enough on its own. The huge levels of investment a fully fledged bank could have leveraged from day one would have brought jobs and growth to many parts of the country at a time when public sector cuts are biting. From investing in new wave and tidal power systems in Cornwall to insulation for homes in Hull – the ability to borrow and lend right now would have created employment all round the UK.

It would also have put UK businesses in a prime position to capitalise on the growing worldwide market for clean energy technology that is clearly destined to be huge. Instead of neutering the bank until 2015 the Treasury should work with the Office for National Statistics to maximise the green investment bank's ability to invest, while minimising its impact on the deficit.

• It was announced last week, after a fast-track review, that the government's feed in tariff will be cut, cutting the incentives to farmers to build solar farms on their land. Tariffs will be cut from 31p per kWh to 8.5p per kWh of energy fed into the grid. This announcement casts doubt on all non-domestic schemes, and while both domestic and commercial schemes are important, if we are to move Britain towards a low-carbon economy, we need to see more commercial photovoltaics schemes. Many different investors have invested in renewables, and solar in particular, solely on the basis that the FiT income is guaranteed for 25 years. This backtrack has halted many important CO2 saving projects and has undermined the low-carbon industry's confidence about investing in the UK.

Jon Abbatt

Principal consultant, ADAS

• Although we are still in the middle of a nuclear catastrophe in Japan, the government sees fit to hand out a major subsidy to the nuclear industry, in the form of carbon-floor pricing. It is estimated that this will benefit them by around £3bn between now and 2050 for doing absolutely nothing. Couldn't the government think of a way to only give the benefit of carbon-floor pricing in proportion to the carbon saved and not to existing, unsustainable and non-renewable sources such as nuclear power. The "no subsidy for nuclear" promise is another coalition joke.